A three-step methodology for process-oriented performance : how to enhance automated data collection in healthcare

Background. Healthcare managers often attempt to enhance process-oriented performance. However, this remains a challenge. New approaches aimed at increasing the implementation success of process-oriented performance measurement should be investigated. Methods. This study investigates and discusses a step-by-step methodology to implement an automated and effective process-oriented performance measurement system in a hospital. The methodology is based on a framework for developing dashboards based on three steps: the demand side, supply side, and the fit between the two. An illustrative case of the process of hip surgery in the operating room of two hospitals is used. Results. A methodology has been developed to define a reliable set of process-oriented performance metrics, allowing analysis and management of the different flows in healthcare in an integrated way, several methods were investigated to automatically integrate the data gathered into a reporting infrastructure that can be used to disseminate the results. Conclusion. This step-by-step methodology allows healthcare organizations to develop and implement effective process-oriented performance measurement in an automated way. This allows the alignment of the goals of hospital management and various stakeholders with the more analytical analysis of business process management notation and hospital information system (HIS) data

Don’t Ditch the Laptop Just Yet: A Direct Replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) Study 1 Plus Mini Meta-Analyses Across Similar Studies

In this direct replication of Mueller and Oppenheimer’s (2014) Study 1, participants watched a lecture while taking notes with a laptop ( n = 74) or longhand ( n = 68). After a brief distraction and without the opportunity to study, they took a quiz. As in the original study, laptop participants took notes containing more words spoken verbatim by the lecturer and more words overall than did longhand participants. However, laptop participants did not perform better than longhand participants on the quiz. Exploratory meta-analyses of eight similar studies echoed this pattern. In addition, in both the original study and our replication, higher word count was associated with better quiz performance, and higher verbatim overlap was associated with worse quiz performance, but the latter finding was not robust in our replication. Overall, results do not support the idea that longhand note taking improves immediate learning via better encoding of information. </jats:p

The EKiTE network (epidemiology in kidney transplantation - a European validated database): an initiative epidemiological and translational European collaborative research

BACKGROUND: Kidney transplantation is considered to be the treatment of choice for people with end-stage renal disease (ESRD). However, due to the shortage of available organs and the increase in the ESRD prevalence in Europe, it is essential to improve transplantation outcomes by studying the related prognostic factors. Today, there is no European registry collecting data to perform such clinical epidemiology studies. MAIN BODY: Entitled EKiTE, for European cohort for Kidney Transplantation Epidemiology, this prospective and multicentric cohort includes patients from Spanish (Barcelona), Belgian (Leuven), Norwegian (Oslo) and French (Paris Necker, Lyon, Nantes, Nancy, Montpellier, Nice and Paris Saint Louis) transplantation centers and currently contains 13,394 adult recipients of kidney (only) transplantation from 2005 and updated annually. A large set of parameters collected from transplantation until graft failure or death with numbers of post-transplantation outcomes. The long-term follow-up and the collected data enable a wide range of possible survival and longitudinal analyses. CONCLUSION: EKiTE is a multicentric cohort aiming to better assess the natural history of the ESRD in European kidney transplant recipients and perform benchmarking of clinical practices. The data are available for clinical epidemiology studies and open for external investigators upon request to the scientific council. Short-term perspectives are to extend EKITE network to other European countries and collect additional parameters in respect of the common thesaurus.status: publishe